Tuesday, September 21, 2010

It's the views, Marge...

9-21-2010

Why I think walking 3 days in San Francisco will be a tad easier than walking 18 around home:

and

Views like this, they can keep you going, I think. We've spent several days in SF just walking around now, and I haven't tired of it. Granted, our pace has been slower than it will be on the SGK 3 Day, but we've pretty much kept moving all day long. Lots of stops and starts, but it's movement.

A couple of times I turned to ask the Spouse Thingy if I was walking too fast, and at one point I had to ask him, seriously, "Did you ever think I'd be the one asking that?"

Between us, it's been a typical question over the years. Invariably, it's him asking me; for me to turn to him and check my speed is a new thing. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that it feels good. A reason it feels good is that he's not in bad shape; he Trikkes, and he's got some decent cardio conditioning going for him. But a year ago we wouldn't have even tried walking around San Francisco, because I couldn't have done it.

At least I didn't think I could do it.

Ten more days. I get more excited with each day that passes; sure, there are some nerves, but for me those nerves are tapped into my weird little phobias and not so much the whole walking thing.

I'm shy. I may not come across online as shy, but I am. This whole thing involves meeting people, people I already like but people I've never met nonetheless. If you ever wonder why the Spouse Thingy tags along with me so much, that's a major reason.

Another reason he's with me...I'm a freakishly weird about not being able to go new places by myself the first time. I do dry runs all the time, finding places I have to be at a later date, just because I have to. New restaurants, new anything, he'll go with me that first time. In that, he's my enabler, but in the sense that after that, I'm able. I can go alone.

I have food issues. Not toddler-esque I'm not putting this odd looking thing in my mouth because it just looks wrong issues. My issues are more like, what's in it? Mushrooms? Please don't let there be mushrooms. Mango? Please no mango. I don't want to die tonight! Food allergies are a bitch, they make eating fun.

But worse than that for me is the slightly maybe major problem of being able to eat and then walk. Some not very pretty things can happen when I eat and then do anything other than sit there like a lump. Let's just be delicate and say I may be living on Immodium for three days...

So yeah, I have some weird phobias and doing this will tap into a few of them. But hell, so what?

I get to do this!

And I get to do it in one of the most scenic places on the west coast.

I have to admit, that when I began the training, in my head was this thing that was all, "You have to be able to take every damned step of the Walk; you have to keep going all day every day, and you can't take the sweeper van because that's failure. Other people can and that's perfectly fine, but if you don't walk every step of all sixty miles, you have failed."

Ya know what? I'm over that. I will do what I can do for as long as I can do it, and I will enjoy every second of it that I can. And how can you not enjoy walking around a city where a casual glance to your right pops things like this into your field of vision:

2 comments:

I can feel your excitement in your writing. I wish I could be there just to watch you face all the phobias and get on with what needs to be done. You have gone through a lot this year (that's as long as I have followed you!) and you give me courage. Thank you.